As if all the Pennsylvania news wasn’t enough, I stumbled onto this story about a student, whose family may sue their daughter's high school history teacher. They seem bitter. I’ll update as the story develops. <snark alert>

As the Bush folly slithers toward its slimy end, as McCain stumbles deeper into the politics of amnesia, as ABC covers another breaking story about lapel pins … here’s a little interlude, in this late-night lull before the PA primary news kicks in, to remember a departed but not forgotten voice.

“We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”

Today (for you west coasties) was the 60th anniversary of the passing of ecologist Aldo Leopold, who died April 21, 1948 of a heart attack while fighting a fire on a neighbor’s Wisconsin farm. Beyond his connection to the many excellent eco-diaries posted on DailyKos, Leopold’s voice remains relevant in other ways.

"Sometimes I think that ideas, like men, can become dictators... I doubt if there exists today a more complete regimentation of the human mind than that accomplished by our self-imposed doctrine of ruthless utilitarianism. The saving grace of democracy is that we fastened this yoke on our own necks, and we can cast if off when we want to, without severing the neck."

Splashed across the front page of Sunday’s Arizona Republic, the state’s largest newspaper, is a color photo of Senator John McCain, with the bold headline: “Convictions and Contradictions.” Now, the conservative mouthpiece has a long history of political king-making and shilling for Republican candidates, so it comes as no surprise they’d do a puff piece of their favorite son. But with a headline like “Convictions and Contradictions,” you’d think they might spend some time on that second word. I was soon disabused of any such notion.

Abbott: Well Costello, I'm going to Washington, DC with you. You know the President gave me a job as a constitutional strategist for as long as you’re working with the NSA to fight terrorism.
Costello: Look Abbott, if you're a White House strategist, you must know all the cabinet members and other staff.
Abbott: I certainly do.
Costello: Well, you know I’ve never met the guys. So you’ll have to tell me their names, and then I’ll know who can help me get around FISA, the other courts, the Constitution, and that pesky public.
Abbott: Oh, I’ll tell you their names, but you know it seems to me they give these politicians and staffers now-a-days very peculiar names.
Costello: You mean funny names?
Abbott: Strange names, pet names...like Decider.
Costello: You mean Ima?
Abbott: Yep, Ima Decider. Well, let’s see who else we have in the administration: Yoo’s legal counsel, Watt's in Interior, and I Don’t Recall the Attorney General.

Those who teach literature have more than enough ammunition these days to make the classics “relevant.” The other night when discussing Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” I didn’t have to alert anyone to the contemporary application of Henry’s words when we came to this early passage:

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.

Of course the rest of that essay rings alarmingly true today, and other literary references abound in daily conversation. Critics often speak of the Orwellian nature of BushCo’s language, whether it’s the “Healthy Forests” initiative or the way Iraqi deaths are counted (or not counted). Huxley’s Brave New World and Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale are invoked to described NSA scandals and other Big Brother abuses. Stories that seemed outrageous during our college years have become reality. A few on the flip, please add others:

Tonight on PBS's NOW program, host David Brancaccio surveyed several of the campaign public funding initiatives around the nation, including Arizona's "Clean Elections." (Watch a 6-minute segment here.) The state's current governor, Janet Napolitano, is the only sitting state executive who ran using public financing. In Arizona, that means the candidate cannot accept donations of more than $5, then a formula kicks in that provides public dollars, which hypothetically gives everyone the same amount to spend on campaigns - and keeps "big money" out of elections.

The movement has certainly resulted in strange bedfellows. On NOW, both Republicans and Democrats spoke in favor of and against public financing. Brancaccio pointed out, for instance, that in Arizona Republicans gained more legislative seats using Clean Elections, a strategy that many people initially saw as a Trojan Horse for progressives.

I just watched five (5!) campaign ads in a row on television - same station, one after another. And we still have more than three weeks to go. Oh god. None of these ads provides any substance that will help the average citizen understand where the respective candidate stands on a single issue. If "positive," the ads are mushy and meaningless. But most are negative attack ads; and all of them stretch or at least blur the truth. Fear is the dominant selling point - the "bad guy" is always portrayed in grainy, black-and-white, slow motion. Booo!

We prohibit cigarette advertising from the airwaves because smoking is bad for one's health. I wonder if it's time to think seriously about restricting political advertising from television and radio - because what we have now is equally unhealthy for democracy.

Last week I diaried about a Jon Kyl commercial (R-AZ), where the Senator tries to distance himself from Bush (and his own record) by stating he's a strong advocate for Social Security. He also reminds us he didn't support W's energy plan because it's "good for oil companies but a lousy deal for the public." It should come as no surprise, as I documented by highlighting his record, that he's consistently voted against Social Security and for Big Oil. Historically, Kyl is rated about as low as you can get by senior watchdog groups, and about as high as you can get by energy interests.

He's at it again. You can check his recent ad here, but the eye-opener transcript follows the flip.

You know the commercial, the one where a brash announcer, edgy cartoon graphics, and in-your-face Wagnerian horns tell you to "come on down" and get a new car for no money down and only one-ninety-nine a month. There's like a page of text at the bottom of the screen; it's too small to read and stays on only briefly, but you know what it says. It's saying there's no friggin' way you can buy that snazzy car for nothing down and $199 a month.

We all know the ad lies. Go down to the dealership and there'd be "delivery charges," "upgrades," "service fees," and other additions that would require a down payment (they'd call it a "dealer deposit" or something), and the $199, with all the franchise's tack-ons, taxes, and financing schemes, would be closer to $299. This isn't the Letterman-like irony we came of age in. Many of today's ads are just plain lies - from benign ones that we accept and largely ignore, to dangerous ones that potentially undermine democracy.

Yesterday deano's post about Ben & Jerry's alleged mistreatment of animals, specifically chickens, yielded an interesting and, at times, combative thread about the use and abuse of animals for food, clothing, and other human necessities. A few of the comments were along the lines of "They're just chickens, get over it," while others challenged the hypocrisy of animal defenders with questions like, "Don't you wear leather?"

I'm going to sidestep the issue of B&J's corporate social responsibilities, because I don't know the company's history since it was purchased, but I want to go to the heart of the comments. We're supposedly "liberals," in the historic sense of that word. So in the spirit of Rawlsian liberalism, which is at root the story of extending rights to the oppressed, and giving voice to the voiceless, I want to try to put our chicken discussion in context - specifically a historical, ethical, and jurisprudential framework.

As was diaried and front-paged here yesterday, on Friday's The News Hour David Brooks characterized the blogosphere's attitude toward Joe Lieberman as "vicious," even suggesting that DailyKos is so venomous that its very loud voice and large forum quells politicians into submission (not wanting to get in our nasty "crosshairs"). I suppose it's because posters here swear a lot, are often hot-blooded, insult people in high places, and are especially critical of this administration's deliberate history of failure.

George Bush is a mean man. I wouldn't want him for my daddy. I wouldn't want a father who'd tell me I was better than others, I was entitled to more than others, I was expected to lie to and steal from others, I was justified in keeping secrets from others, I was allowed to shit all over the toys of others. That's his administration's message, that's the dad you'd get. But his role as a preemptive "Father Knows Best" is about to end. Bud is pissed, he's talkin' to Fitzpatrick, and it's not about his pimples.

Many of us have heard that invitation countless times since the exposure of the president's illegal NSA wiretaps - on radio talk shows and TV programs, in newspapers and other blogs, on the street and around the water cooler. Today, half of our fellow citizens say giving up their privacy is a price they're willing to pay, in order to give the administration the tools it needs to protect us from that scary "them."

As more than a few diarists here and columnists elsewhere have noted, the nation managed to respect privacy rights when things were a heck of a lot scarier than today - like during WWII or the Cold War, when thousands of missiles were aimed at our duck-and-cover asses. (Historically, when we did step over the line, as in the Sedition Act, Internment camps, or McCarthy, it turned out to be wrong. Duh, a clue perhaps?) Of course, Bushie's heh-heh excuse that implementing this unauthorized snooping prior to 9/11 might have tipped us off in time to stop the WTC attacks has pretty much been put to bed. Even so, we continue to hear, "Go ahead, do your spy thing, I don't have anything to hide." Bullshit, here's why.

Tonight former oil man Bush said America is, duh, "addicted to oil" (which Wolfy later called "strong words"). Then Bush said, "The best way to break this addiction is through technology." More of the same. Did he say, "The best way to break this addiction is by driving fewer fucking miles?" Nope. Did he say, "The best way to break this addiction is by building communities that don't require nearly everyone to hop in a car, just to get a quart of milk?" Right. Did he say, "The best way to break this addiction is by buying less plastic crap at Wal-Mart?" Hardly. Did he say, "The best way to break this addiction is by investing in more mass transit?" Shit, no. Did he say, "The best way to break this addiction is to grow your own food, or buy local, so you don't have to have lettuce trucked 3,000 miles for that salad?" Nix.

At the gym tonight the local news was on. The lead story was about Ford dumping 30,000 workers and closing five plants. Then on the same program that carried the story I saw three Ford commercials, each one pushing a big-ass truck, either "powerful enought to haul a boat" or galavanting through the desert. Just the stuff most of us do everyday. Who the fuck is this company listening to? Then I wondered the same thing about the program I was watching.  

Many of my friends rarely watch local news, just as they rarely buy big Fords. This reluctance to inflict nightly pain on our brains isn't just shared by progressives; I know conservatives who complain just as much about the quality of their 6 PM broadcasts. Now, there are a pile of books, some well-known, that document the poor quality of television news, so I'm not going to dredge up a lot of specifics. What I do want to do is offer free advice to our local news directors, because I'm sure they're listening to the wrong consultants. Advice follows.

A front-page story in Sunday's Arizona Republic titled "Green Ranchers" describes a $4.5 million sale of a huge parcel of land near the Grand Canyon to two conservation groups.

The story is just one example of how ranchers, environmentalists, and communities are re-thinking the economics of the land. But it's not just about ranchers and cattlemen; their struggles, successes, and failures have implications for all of us.

In yesterday's diary I mentioned Richard Florida in a discussion of tolerance as a positive community-building ingredient. Florida often appears in posts dealing with urban planning, and his name is usually attached to the "Creative Economy" phenomenon (Google that phrase and you'll see how prevalent it is among city planners). I might nit-pick Florida's definitions and methodology (as some readers here do), but I accept his basic premise - that communities which invest in education, the environment, historic preservation, culture, and other quality-of-life assets attract the talent that fosters a robust economy and healthy social setting.

So we should appreciate Florida drawing attention to, and validating, good libraries and schools, clean air and water, vibrant downtowns, tolerance, and diversity (for all people, not only urban loft-living elites). Thanks in part to Florida's popularity and rock star status, it's also heartening to see at city planning meetings that cultural, educational, and environmental advocates no longer have to convince governments that, yes, they ARE important!

A Jan. 2 article by Stephanie Innes in Tucson's Daily Star tells the story of a same-sex couple who moved to California because Arizona does not recognize the two women's partnership, nor their relationship to their son.

Full story here